


A Large Range of Probabilities

by cofax



Series: Monroe County [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-15
Updated: 2009-11-15
Packaged: 2017-10-02 21:42:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,972
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cofax/pseuds/cofax
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If you'd asked her, Canthy Pirelli would probably have said she was an exterminator.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Large Range of Probabilities

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the SPN_XX challenge. 5,000 words.
> 
> Podfic version recorded by Cybel [here](http://audiofic.jinjurly.com/large-range-of-probabilities).
> 
> The sequel, _Loyal Opposition_, is [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11071).

_If women are expected to do the same work as men, we must teach them the same things._ \-- Plato.

_Learn from the mistakes of others. You can't live long enough to make them all yourself._ \- Eleanor Roosevelt.

* * *

The yard on the Browning place--the locals still called it the Browning place, even though Canthy's mother had married Fred Pirelli sixty years ago--was deep, which was a good thing. It was a particularly good thing when Angus, Herc, and Duncan started howling before dawn of a winter morning.

"LaShondra!" Canthy yelled, and banged on the door next to the bathroom as she pulled on her robe and limped downstairs. The automatic coffeemaker had worked, for once, and she poured her first cup while trying to tie her robe one-handed. It didn't work; the chill struck through the gap in her robe when she went to the door to listen to the dogs. "Shit. Shon! Go on out and see what's got them going!"

There was a bang upstairs, a few mumbled curses, and angry thumping on the floorboards before Canthy's apprentice/housemate/dogsbody appeared in the kitchen doorway. Shon had never said her age, and Canthy hadn't asked. Nor had she ever said where she grew up. But she listened when Canthy talked, did what she was told, and she was damned good with the dogs. Plus, she made fantastic hush-puppies, when she could be talked into it.

Shon's puffy winter coat was hanging next to the back door; she grabbed it without even looking at Canthy, and stomped out into the dark. Canthy wasn't sure, but she thought she'd heard an actual snarl. That girl could put her bitch on. Canthy shrugged and poured another cup for Shon, and dug into the cabinet for the oatmeal. Something else for Shon to complain about, but there wasn't much better for a cold upstate morning than hot oatmeal with raisins and maple syrup.

The water and oats were already boiling, and Canthy was on the phone, by the time Shon came stomping back into the kitchen, pausing by the door to toe off her mudboots. Canthy didn't look up from where she was scribbling notes, the phone caught between her ear and her hunched-up shoulder, but she did point with her free hand at the coffee on the counter.

By the time she got off the phone--Terence was one of those people who would repeat things over and over again just to keep you talking with him--her own coffee was cold. "Bleah." She stuck the mug into the old microwave to reheat, rather than waste it.

"So?" asked Shon, grimacing over her oatmeal. She'd loaded it with extra sugar and cream, Canthy noticed; well, she was young enough to burn it off. "Who was that?"

The nuke pinged and Canthy took her coffee out, hissing a little at the way the mug had heated up. "Terence," she said. "Someone in the tack shop was talking about losing a calf yesterday, out back of Kornfelders' place."

Shon sat up straight, her expression sharpening. Most of the time Canthy didn't even tell her about the odd jobs she did on the side, the weird stuff nobody in Monroe County ever talked about. Canthy just would take the dogs and go out, and come back tired and sore, with blood spattered on her boots. But Shon had been here for going on two years, doing good with the dogs and the day-to-day grind of keeping the place in operation. And her kiln was turning out pieces that brought in more, some months, than all the maple syrup and kenneling did together.

Besides, Angus had gotten underfoot last Thursday, and Canthy's ankle was still giving her trouble from that. Someone would have to keep up with the dogs. And they couldn't wait on it--Canthy's mother had always said, "Start with a calf, end with a kid."

Still, Canthy was a little unprepared for the way Shon's face lit up when Canthy said, "Pack us up some sandwiches, and bring extra socks."

*

Angus started whining as soon as they pulled off the road, and was scrabbling at the windows by the time Canthy had tucked the 4Runner into the woods thirty yards down the lane. They were on the back side of a farm at the far end of the county, an area that had been farmed in the early 1800s but but let go fallow when the commercial farmers all went west. Most folks now just had farmstands in the summer, or ran dairy cattle for milk to sell to the Garelick distributor over in Seneca.

In February, the area was as grim as anywhere upstate: bare birch and oak trees and dull pines, dirty snow melting into the slushy mud that used to be last fall's leaves. And cold: the wind was as cutting as it had been in January. Canthy pulled her hat down further over her ears and nodded to LaShondra, who was looking less enthusiastic about this than she had over breakfast. "I'll take Angus, you take Herc and Duncan. And don't let Herc--"

"I know, I know, Dub-Ell," said Shon, scowling, but the snotty nickname had long since lost its sting. "White Lady," indeed. "I'll keep him close." She hopped out of the cab and slammed the passenger door behind her hard enough that the rearview mirror rattled.

This wasn't going to be fun.

Canthy closed her door firmly and tested her ankle in the snow. It would do, but not if she had to run very far, which was why she'd brought Shon. Anyway, it was time: the girl had been in training long enough.

Didn't mean the girl was _comfortable_, though: her eyes widened a bit when Canthy took the rifle out of the locked case in the back of the truck, before letting the dogs out. Angus and Duncan, at least, were rock-solid on voice-command, so Canthy would have her hands free for the gun. If she needed it. She loaded her pockets with extra shells, just in case.

It probably looked funny, from a distance: two small women, white and black, standing in the woods surrounded by over three hundred pounds of bouncing, whining, hounds. Angus' head was waist-high on Canthy, and she wasn't short.

It wasn't funny, though: it was dirty, hard, difficult work.

"Let's go," she said, as she locked the truck. The rifle settled easily in the crook of her arm and Angus clung to her side as she headed south into the woods. "Terence said the calf was about a hundred yards in, off the high-tension line."

"So what are we looking for?" Shon asked, pulling Herc in with a quick jerk on the lead. Duncan padded happily at her heels, head swinging back and forth, his ears twitching. At nine, Angus was the wise old man of the pack; and if he was slower than Duncan, he was cagier too. Smarter.

Canthy sometimes wished she hadn't had Angus fixed, but it wasn't worth the hassle.

"Don't know," Canthy said. Her breath puffed out in white clouds, barely to be seen against the grey-white sky and grey trees around them. "Could be nothing. Could be coyotes or a bobcat."

"Huh," said Shon, frowning the way she did when she was thinking. "Paper said there's a cougar down in Massachusetts, 'round that reservoir outside Boston."

Canthy nodded. "Could be. Won't know til we take a look, let the dogs sniff around."

Shon pursed her lips, but didn't say anything else. They stepped over an old stone wall, marker of the edge of someone's field once upon a time, and headed south.

This wasn't a regular thing; for one thing, Canthy couldn't afford it. Ammunition cost money, and the hunt took time away from work that paid the bills. The old farm didn't run on air: she needed the cash from the kenneling and the farmstand--and now Shon's pottery--to keep it going. Some winters she was damned glad for the cords of mixed pine and oak in the back, that heated the house when she couldn't pay the oil bills.

So she went out when she could, when there was something that needed hunting. It wasn't something she went looking for, wasn't something she talked about. It was what she did, because her mother and uncle had done it, and they learned from their dad. Farmers knew, but they didn't talk, except when they had to.

Once Shon had asked if Canthy had looked the beasts up, tried to identify them. "Can't," said Canthy. "Nothing like them in any of the books."

"So why not bring the corpses to the county extension agent, let the biologists see them?" That was Shon, always wanting to know more than Canthy could tell her.

"My uncle tried that once," Canthy had said. "Fish and Game arrested him for hunting out of season." They'd damn near starved that winter, she remembered. Shon got the message, and didn't ask again.

After about five minute's walk, they came out of the woods into a cleared band that ran northeast-southwest, about fifty yards across. The hum of the power through the high wires could just be heard. "I think it's something about the high tension lines, maybe," Canthy said, stepping cautiously across the uneven ground. In the summer, kids came out here and rode the lines in their four-wheelers and their dirt bikes: it was rough country, and open. "Seen six attacks out here the last few years." Only since that Kornfelder kid went missing that winter eight or ten years ago. Canthy had always wondered if some beast got the boy, or if he'd just run off.

"What were they?" asked Shon, then chirruped at Duncan, who'd paused to mark a stump. He left the spot and returned to her, long tail waving gently.

Canthy fondled Angus' ear, which had been torn badly in a hunt six years ago. It never stood up right after that, but seemed to work fine anyway. "All sorts of things," she said. "Two of 'em looked like bears, a little. The others... I couldn't even describe them. I burned them soon as I could."

"Burned?" This was the first time Shon actually looked nervous. She tugged the sleeves of her parka down further over her hands.

Canthy hesitated. "They... some of them don't die easy. Sometimes you can't tell." Which wasn't, to be fair, all of the truth. But close enough for now.

They found the carcass about fifteen minutes later, after casting back and forth along the edge of the trees for a bit. For once, Terence had gotten her word early: it wasn't nearly so ugly as some she'd seen. The black and white Holstein skin was torn open, blood frozen on the snow around the calf. One of the small hooves was torn nearly all the way off, as if the killer had worried at it.

Or, wait, Canthy thought, turning slowly. Towed it, in fact--there was a bloody smear leading out into the open ground.

"Stop here," Canthy said to Shon.

"Why?" Shon had gotten over her nerves quickly. In daylight, even in winter, it didn't look dangerous here; just cold.

Canthy squatted awkwardly, careful not to drop the rifle in the snow, and examined the prints around the carcass. There wasn't much detail left, after yesterday's sun, but they were big: big as her spread hand. "Huh," she noted, and shifted her weight so she could look at the dead calf more closely. The killer had been here a while, she noted, long enough to get into the entrails--but then it stopped, and left the carcass. It looked like the prints went off southeast, deeper into the woods.

It was cold out here, mid-February cold, but suddenly a chill swept over Canthy, like someone had put a wet hand on the back of her neck. Like she was a kid again, staring at the closet door, convinced _something_ was in there, and it was going to eat her. She frowned and looked around: nothing. Just winter-dead shrubs, the snow crusty with frozen melt, blood and mud--and Angus whining, tail between his legs. "Hey, boy," Canthy said, rubbing behind his ears. He shrunk closer against her, his ears twitching uncertainly.

"Shit, it's cold," said Shon, stomping her feet. As if unaware of the prickle running down Canthy's spine. The other two dogs were unaffected: Herc twisted around to bite at an itch on his flank, and Duncan had stretched his nose out towards the calf, snuffling eagerly.

Just something weird. Maybe it was the power lines, some of the electricity in the air jangling her nerves. But whatever it was, it was fading. Canthy shrugged it off, turning back to the carcass, and the prints of whatever it was that had killed the calf.

Killed, but not consumed: it looked like it got as far as gutting the calf, and then stopped. Why stop? A cougar would take its kill into the trees; most of the other critters Canthy had hunted out here would have eaten the calf down to the bones, and then cracked them. This one almost looked like it had been run off. But there were no other prints here, not that she could see.

Guess it didn't really matter, anyway. They were after whatever killed the calf. "Okay, bring Herc over here," Canthy said.

Shon did so, not reluctantly, but stayed as far away as she could from the calf. "Here, boy," Canthy said, guiding the dog's nose to the print nearest the carcass. They could track by sight, but there was a good chance the beast would have gone into the rocks: there was an outcropping about half a mile to the east, and Canthy trusted Herc better than her own eyesight. "Find, Herc. Find!"

Herc was a hound like Duncan and Angus, but not a wolfhound like the others. Canthy wasn't entire sure _what_ Herc was: he had the strangest spotted coat, but the drooping ears and jowls of a bloodhound. And he was the best tracker Canthy had ever trained; she was pretty sure he was the best tracker in the state, although Jerry Moore's bitch Serena had taken the title for the past three years. Canthy wondered about underhanded dealings, there, although she'd never breathed a word about her suspicions.

Herc snuffled a few times, swivelled with unsuspected grace, and struck off into the woods, tugging firmly at the leash Shon had looped around her hand. "Ow! Slow down, man!"

"No, don't slow him down," said Canthy, straightening with a groan and signalling the other dogs to heel. "Just keep up with him. If you see anything, though, stop. Don't get near it without me and the rifle."

There was a choked laugh from ahead. "Because I'm just that stupid, Dub-Ell."

Guess the dead calf had spooked Shon more than she was willing to admit. Canthy smiled a little, winced at the twinge in her ankle, and followed Shon into the woods, trying to avoid getting slapped in the face by swinging pine branches.

*

They found the beast an hour later, holed up in a den less than half a mile from where they'd started. But then animals rarely travel in a straight line. This one had been moving fast at first--Canthy could tell that much from the prints--then settled down, swung in a meandering loop that crossed the powerlines twice, and ended up where she'd expected. It wasn't even a hill, really; just a jumble of huge granite boulders left behind by a glacier ten thousand generations ago, overgrown in the summer with wild huckleberry and pricker-bushes.

Grumbling and limping, Canthy had managed to keep up with Shon better than she had expected, although it got harder to hold Duncan and Angus back as they approached the rocks. Shon had Herc hard by the collar, keeping him with her, but the hound was into hunting mode, and his whines had become full-on baying. He was pulling hard against the lead, and given that he outweighed Shon, it was only the prongs of the pinch collar--and habit--that kept him with her.

Canthy snapped "Down!" at all three dogs, and they did, although not without a resentful glare from Duncan. He'd get his turn.

"Where do you think?" asked Shon, as the howling settled down into a continuous whine. "Is it in there?"

"It's in there," said Canthy, unslinging the rifle from her back. She chambered a round, and Angus' ears went up: he knew what that meant. "Up on the right: see that shadow? Angus treed a bobcat in there, couple years ago."

Shon pulled at her sleeves again. She looked chilled, although the air had warmed up: it was almost freezing. Her braids were falling out of her hat, the beads clicking against each other. "So what do we do?"

This was the fun part. "We send them in, and when it comes out, I shoot it."

Her eyebrows rising, Shon looked down at the dogs, who were still down, officially, but Duncan had a line of drool all the way to the ground, and all three were tense as wires, ready to spring as soon as Canthy gave the word. "What if it doesn't come out?"

"Then we go in after it." Canthy paused, rolled her shoulders, and said, "Get 'em." On the instant, Angus and Duncan were off the ground and bounding forward. Herc whined, pulling at the leash holding him back, but the other two were silent, kicking up muddy slush behind them as they ran.

The crevice the beast had retreated into, if it was the same one that bear-thing last year had used, was deep into the jumble, and not quite tall enough for a person to walk into standing up. Canthy followed cautiously, waving Shon behind her, as the dogs leaped and scrambled their way into the rocks. It was still morning, and the air was cold, but the cloud-cover was beginning to break, away in the west. They might get some sunlight today, after all.

Duncan was in front, as always, reaching the opening to the crevice ahead of Angus. His tail went down and his hackles up, and he snarled as he slowed, moving stiff-legged closer to the crevice. Whatever it was, was definitely in there. Canthy was still some dozens of yards away, struggling over the corpse of a dead pine, when she heard Duncan's snarl warp into enraged barking. "Shit--" She yanked her coat away from the branch it was caught on and forged forward.

From higher up, she saw a flash of reddish fur, and then Shon yelled, "Duncan!" from behind her. Something had come out of the crevice, something _big_, and Canthy was still too far away. It made a cry, something she could hear, high-pitched and eerie, over Duncan's and now Angus' barking.

She grabbed the young pine that was supporting her, drew a deep breath, and bellowed, "Angus, Duncan, bring 'em out!"

Oh, her dogs were _good_. They were a whirlwind, snapping and snarling and nipping, always moving, staying out of range, and steadily, slowly, driving the beast into the open. It was moving too fast for Canthy to get a clear look at it, but it was big--tall as a man--and roughly bear-shaped, but there was something strange about its limbs. It swung around and lunged after Duncan, and Canthy gasped.

"Holy shit!" muttered Shon. "Did you see that?"

"Uh-huh." If Canthy had to describe it, she would have called it a short dinosaur. One of the big ones, with the big jaws and the little front legs. Tyrannawhatever. Except it was covered in dense red-brown fur.

She'd seen a lot of weird critters on this job: but this was definitely a first. Damn, it was big: she hoped she had enough gasoline in the back of the truck.

There were still too many trees in the way, and the damned thing wouldn't stop moving. She would have to get closer. Tree, tree, bush, rock, and then she was in the clear, mostly, Shon close behind her with Herc, who was desperate to get into the fray. "Hang onto him, damnit!" Canthy snapped as Herc lurched forward, nearly knocking her over.

The melee of dogs and beast was about fifty feet away; Canthy should be able to get a shot from here. She wasn't as good as her uncle had been, but she was good enough. If the damned thing would just stop moving--

Instead the red beast lunged at Duncan, dodged Angus with agility improbable for its size, and broke away from the dogs at a dead run.

Heading right for Canthy, Shon, and Herc.

It moved impossibly fast on those oversized haunches, the big clawed feet kicking up slush, leaves, and clumps of dirt behind it. It was a freight train. There was no time to react, or even breathe. Canthy brought the rifle up and fired, pumped, fired again, pumped again--but she was out of time, it was upon her. If she'd hit it, she couldn't tell. It was _huge_, filling her vision, and it stank of fur and urine and the musty dank of the deep woods--_where did it come from?_\--and then Canthy was falling.

Not falling--thrown to the ground, yanked out of the way by a hand in her collar. The sharp filthy claws of the beast swung past her face, and the rifle flew out of her hands to land on the ground six feet away. The beast had overshot her, but was slowing and turning. Canthy knew the dogs were coming, but they weren't fast enough.

It was going to turn and fall upon her, and that would be it. Thirty years of dirty unexplainable work, ending in bloody slush on the back side of the Kornfelders' farm.

"Canthy, run!"

But the way her ankle was screaming, Canthy was pretty damned sure that wasn't going to happen.

Bright blue flashed by her eyes as Shon dove across Canthy, _somersaulting_ into the snow and coming up with the rifle in her hands. She had two rounds left in the magazine, Canthy thought blurrily; 30-06 was good enough for moose, but--

Shon didn't even bring the rifle all the way up; she shot from the hip, as if it were a damned movie, firing right into the beast's chest as it charged her. It staggered, but kept moving. The dogs were upon it now, white teeth flashing as they hounded it, even Herc joining in, with his jowls swinging. His tail was wagging as if it were all a game.

But the dogs made no difference: the beast, all eight feet of it, maybe ten, was still heading for Canthy and Shon. When Angus got close enough to put a gash in its flank, it swung a foreleg at him with an air of irritation, and this time it connected. He yelped, falling to the ground. There was blood on the snow now, Canthy couldn't tell what from.

"Damn you," said Shon, raising the Remington to her shoulder, and fired.

The bullet, the last in the magazine, took the beast in the eye. It stopped moving, but for the length of three gasping breaths, Canthy wasn't sure that was enough. Until, slowly, it toppled forward, sinking to the ground in unnerving silence. Blood ran from its mouth out onto the snow. When Canthy struggled onto her knees, desperate to reach Angus, she got blood all over her hands.

*

They ate the sandwiches while walking back to the car, thankfully upwind from the still-smoking corpse of the furry tyrranosaur, as Shon insisted on calling it. Well, Shon walked, and Canthy limped heavily, leaning on Shon's shoulder when she needed to step down or cross a gully. It seemed a lot farther than it had on the way out, but Shon was pretty good about it, especially since Canthy had sent her back to the truck alone with Herc and Duncan, to get the first aid kit for Angus and the gas for the beast.

Angus limped along behind Canthy, sticking close in a way he only did when there were dumptrucks nearby. It had taken a long time to get the corpse burning, and the shadows were lengthening by the time they came out into the open ground by the power lines. The calf carcass was still there, of course--but so was something else.

"Shon," Canthy said, "what is that?"

About thirty yards away, in the pale light of a February afternoon, there was something in the air, next to the calf carcass. Almost a child, almost, in a snorkel jacket with the hood thrown back--but not. Fuzzy, somehow, like a bad hologram on that _Star Trek_ show Shon liked to watch. A faded photograph, but moving: it moved, and turned, and was suddenly a blink closer, eyes wide and yet almost blind. Not seeing them, maybe.

It blinked closer again, a blip like a skip on a record, and Shon squeaked, jumping back. Canthy didn't know what to do: she was pretty sure the Remington couldn't touch something that the _sun shone through_.

A thatch of white-blond hair and dark eyes, like the Kornfelders all were. Nancy and Berend had been bringing their dogs to Canthy for their summer canoe trip every year for fifteen years: Canthy knew what the family looked like.

It was cold again: that chill sinking in all over her body, and Angus crouched whining at her feet. The figure--the boy--lifted a hand, opened its coat.

"Oh my god!" choked Shon. The boy's belly was torn open, intestines dangling over his belt. The blood on him was dried, though: brown and crusted on his t-shirt and jeans. "Oh my god! What is it!"

Canthy shook her head, stepping backwards, nearly tripping over Angus. "I don't know, I don't know."

She hadn't had time to be afraid, when they killed the beast, it had happened so quickly. She'd shook afterwards, but by then it was over. Most of the time, on these jobs, that was all it was: a job. Flush the creature out, shoot it, burn it.

This, though: this was _wrong_. Not natural, not blood and fur, bones and claws. This was _dead_, the Kornfelder boy whose name Canthy had long since forgotten, exposing his entrails to her like a dirty old man on a city street. The dead boy blinked closer; he was just fifteen feet away now, and Shon was chanting something, maybe a prayer.

"Shon," said Canthy, clutching the rifle like it could save her. "_Run_."

She ran, stumbling, swearing at the way her ankle throbbed, following Shon's blue coat and hoping Angus could keep up. It wouldn't hurt a dog, would it? Could it?

It didn't chase them; when they reached the far side of the powerlines, where they had to cut straight through the trees to get to the road, Canthy paused to look behind. Nothing was there, just the sun on the snow, the shadows of the electric towers and pine saplings laying long across the rumpled ground. The air smelled only of snow and pine sap. Even the calf carcass was out of sight.

The truck was deep in the shade when they got back to it, Herc and Duncan whining in the rear as though they'd been abandoned for days. Shon helped Angus up into the back and slammed the door without giving Canthy a chance to lock the rifle away. "I'm driving," Shon announced, with a pointed look at the gun.

"Good idea," said Canthy, and hopped in the passenger side, looking back at the powerlines as she did. Still nothing back there. Nothing back there as they pulled out onto the county road, or as they crossed the river and houses began to populate the sides of the road. Whatever it was, they'd left it behind them.

Shon pulled the truck over in front of Bud's Pub just outside town, and turned the motor off. Canthy put her hand on the door latch, then hesitated; Shon was just sitting there, staring at the semi parked next to the pay phone.

"Okay, Dub-Ell," she said, folding her arms across her chest and fixing Canthy with a hard stare. "This is what we're gonna do. First, we're gonna go in there and we are gonna have a couple of beers and burgers. Then, we are gonna talk about this shit, and you are gonna tell me _everything_."

The cab was quiet for a long moment; Shon's fierce expression faded to uncertainty as the silence drew itself out. Finally Canthy raised an eyebrow. "Like that?"

"Hell, yes. And if you don't know something, then we are going to find out! I have had enough of this 'don't ask me' shit!"

Canthy drummed her fingers on the dashboard, automatically checking the rear to make sure the dogs were okay. That thing, that _ghost_ they saw today--her mother and uncle had never said anything about something like that. It was wrong, it was scary, and if that was out there, what else might be? What else had she been missing, all these years?

"Yeah," she said finally, and got out of the truck. "Yeah, okay."

Shon matched her stride for stride as they headed for the bar door. But she hesitated, searching Canthy's face. "You're sure?"

Canthy nodded. "Yeah, I'm sure. Just one thing." She swung the door open to the tinny sound of Aerosmith on the jukebox and the smell of spilled Miller. "You're buying the first round."

END

_Ignorance gives one a large range of probabilities_. -- George Eliot.


End file.
